BBC Scotland - the launch

Split from BBC Scotland channel - service to also launch in HD

The 1900 timing is key. It wouldn’t have been permitted. A clean opportunity in the Athletics would have been useful. A pause inserted in the upcoming events that was shown preceding for 5 seconds would have worked.

The only way around it is if sports on BBC Two are aware that those on BBC Scotland will be cutting away. This will surely be needed when Wimbledon is on later in the year, as that usually causes schedules to move all over the place.

I wonder if this is causing any issues with iPlayer, if the same programme is going out but different lengths - we've seen it before when a nation has opted out of live sport at some point and the shortened version is the one that's ended up on iPlayer because it thinks the programme has ended before it really has.

The BBC Scotland iPlayer content is completely separate from other channels. There’s no issue there. As for the 1900 break I can understand the rationale and the regulatory framework and the heavily restricted coverage outside of the authorised 1900 - 0000 window. Mid programme pre 1900 Junctions need improvement that’s all.

Wouldn't a repeat at 1830 last night of a 30 minute programme have been the best option - either something from the first five days of the channel or from the BBC1/BBC2 Scotland archives? Or even a BBC2 network programme if the BBC don't want viewers to expect non-sport/politics Scottish programming at that time?

I can understand the rationale for focusing on peak hours, and for using BBC2 as a sustaining service in the afternoon when there is no politics or Scotland-only sport, but such a rigid application of this policy just leads to messy situations. Even if an appropriate opt-out point had been provided, it's still not ideal to be leaving a programme part way through, especially when that programme could have still been viewed on BBC2.

Looking passively at the scheduling they seem to be putting as much new content out after 10pm than before 9pm, which perhaps makes sense when considering how uncompetitive it is in comparison to early peak.